Poll: Wolf maintains lead in Democratic primary for governor

Time's growing short for Schwartz, McCord, McGinty.

Heading down the home stretch, York businessman Tom Wolf is maintaining the wide lead he built over his fellow Democratic gubernatorial hopefuls with a barrage of early TV ads.

The first statewide poll of the contest in more than a month shows support for Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz and state Treasurer Rob McCord creeping up, but they're still trailing Wolf by more than 20 points.

Wolf is the choice of 38 percent of likely Democratic voters in The Morning Call/Muhlenberg College survey, leading Schwartz (13 percent) and McCord (11 percent). Katie McGinty, a former state environmental protection secretary, is a distant fourth with 2 percent.

The cadre of voters describing themselves as unsure is dwindling but still substantial — at 33 percent — less than three weeks before the May 20 primary.

Realistically, that's not enough undecideds to vault any of Wolf's opponents into the lead, said Muhlenberg College political scientist Chris Borick, who conducted the poll. To do that, they'd have to knock off some of Wolf's supporters.

"If he can hold this margin around 40 percent of the vote, it is mathematically a big challenge for those other candidates to be able to reach him," Borick said. "That is why they are trying harder and harder to bring him back — to increase his negatives."

Wolf is staying ahead of the pack with the help of Democrats such as Alice Euerr of Bethlehem. She thinks Wolf is an outsider who would bring new ideas to the state capital, which gives him an edge, in her book, over Schwartz and McCord, both politicians.

"I don't want to see anybody who has been in politics," Euerr said.

A retired Lehigh County social services caseworker, Euerr demonstrates the advantage Wolf gained from being the first candidate to run television ads statewide. Wolf's plan to raise taxes on natural gas drilling, the subject of one of his first spots, helped win her support.

"He's the first candidate who said that," she said. "I have a home in Bethlehem, but I also have a home in western Pennsylvania, a vacation home. I'm very interested in that issue, because it's right near where a lot of this fracking takes place."

Fracking also struck a nerve with sales rep Dani Kennedy of Havertown, Delaware County, but she's leaning toward McCord. She's also more familiar with him because he lives in her section of the Philadelphia suburbs.

"I'm still researching them, but if the race were tomorrow, I would vote for Rob McCord," she said. "He is the most aggressive on the gas drilling, actually taxing them."

Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing — the process of extracting natural gas from shale rock — is on Democratic voters' minds, according to the poll. Named by 12 percent of respondents, it came in third behind education at 28 percent and jobs/economy at 16 percent when voters were asked to name the most important issues in the race.

The McCord and Schwartz camps have intensified attacks in recent days over Wolf's support for the failed re-election campaign of a York mayor who was a former police officer acquitted of murder in the 1969 shooting of a black woman during a race riot in the city.

Wolf has called the attacks "outrageous" and "racially charged."

There's a reason they're taking shots, Borick said. A solid 72 percent of voters have a positive opinion of Wolf, far more than the 49 percent who have a favorable opinion of Schwartz and the 43 percent whose opinion of McCord is positive.

"So far, the other candidates haven't really been able to build up his negatives," Borick said. "He has really low negatives. And he has the highest name recognition."

With little money to pay for television ads in the pricey Philadelphia market, McGinty has the lowest name recognition. Just 27 percent of voters have a positive image of McGinty, while 60 percent don't know enough about her to form an opinion, according to the poll.

"Our polling shows this is going to be a very competitive race as people continue to get to know Katie," said her spokesman, Mike Mikus.

The other campaigns also tried to put a positive spin on the numbers, pointing out the third of voters who haven't chosen sides.

"A large number of voters continue to be undecided in this race, and with some of the most important issues now becoming part of the conversation, we expect things to change significantly in the weeks ahead," McCord spokesman Mark Nevins said.

Said Schwartz's spokesman, Mark Bergman: "With a third of the electorate undecided and new questions being raised about Tom Wolf, his business, his background and his campaign daily, this race is wide open."